


Day Eleven: Monsters/Claws/Bite Marks

by Euphorion



Series: Writober [11]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, Shapeshifting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-16
Updated: 2016-10-16
Packaged: 2018-08-22 19:51:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8298301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Euphorion/pseuds/Euphorion
Summary: “I said I was sorry,” Kyoutani said sullenly. “Can you stop poking at it already?”
  Yahaba ran his fingers over his side again. The bite no longer ached, thanks to the salve he’d made last week, but the ring of light bruises was still recognizable as the imprint of teeth—too sharp and narrow-jawed to be human, but teeth nonetheless. “I’m not looking at it to make you feel bad,” he said, finding Kyoutani in the mirror. He was lying on his back on the locker room bench, his hands tucked under his head. “I’m looking at it because it’s a puzzle.”





	

“I said I was sorry,” Kyoutani said sullenly. “Can you stop poking at it already?”

Yahaba ran his fingers over his side again. The bite no longer ached, thanks to the salve he’d made last week, but the ring of light bruises was still recognizable as the imprint of teeth—too sharp and narrow-jawed to be human, but teeth nonetheless. “I’m not looking at it to make you feel bad,” he said, finding Kyoutani in the mirror. He was lying on his back on the locker room bench, his hands tucked under his head. “I’m looking at it because it’s a puzzle.”

Kyoutani pushed himself up on an elbow. “What do you mean?”

Yahaba felt his gaze on his back like the hot breath of a predator, and fought not to shiver. He picked up his shirt. “Well,” he said, “if you’re a werewolf, why haven’t I changed?”

Kyoutani sat up further while Yahaba pulled on his shirt. “Maybe you should bite me back,” he said. From anyone else it would have been flirty.

Yahaba sighed. “That’s vampires, idiot. And I’m not trying to become a werewolf, just wondering—”

Kyoutani scowled at him. “They’re both fictional creatures, who even cares—”

“—we care,” Yahaba reminded him loudly, crossing to face him, “because you apparently are one, and I’ve got magic powers, so stop telling me these things don’t matter because they only happen in fiction. You’re living fiction now. Suck it up.”

Kyoutani’s eyebrows were pulled so far together over his nose Yahaba though they might merge into one. “I never asked you for help. Don’t tell me what to do—”

“Do smarter shit and I won’t have to,” Yahaba countered. 

Kyoutani snarled at him, and Yahaba had a split second of remembering—the lean, furred power of him, the long muzzle, the snap and slobber of his jaws—before taking himself in a firm mental hand enough to laugh. “You gonna bite me again?” he asked. Daring—daring himself, shoving away his stupid, useless fear—he raised his shirt again. “Give me a matching set?”

Kyoutani reared back like he’d been struck, and Yahaba was already following up on his advantage: “You know, sometimes I think you’re not under a spell at all, this is just God realizing he made a mistake giving you a human body when clearly you’re animal through and through.”

For an instant Kyoutani just stared at him. Then he stood up. His shoulder smacked Yahaba square in the chest as he pushed past, leaving ripples of guilt that washed through his whole body.

“Kyoutani,” he called after his teammate. “Hey—I’m sorry—”

Kyoutani kept going, brushing past Oikawa on his way in. 

“Woah,” Oikawa said. He raised his eyebrows at Yahaba. “You two are here early. Getting the day started right, huh?” His voice was half teasing and half gentle rebuke.

Yahaba made sure his shirt was covering his bite marks before leaning down to put on his shoes. “Sorry, captain,” he muttered. “He just—gets under my skin.”

 _Or through it_ , he thought, and snorted to himself. 

Oikawa wasn’t really listening, though. He seemed distracted, his eyes tired, and as he reached up to store his stuff in his locker Yahaba caught sight of a bracelet around his wrist he’d never seen before. It looked like thread with colored beads knotted into it. Yahaba counted seven—he didn’t recognize all of them, but saw tiger eye, jet, malachite, and something that looked like it might be blue agate. He thought back to his notebook, trying to think of what he’d learned about stones and their magical uses, but he hadn’t really been paying much attention. 

He’d suspected for a while that Oikawa could also work magic. A lot of what he’d done early on had been observation-type magic, giving him a sort of hyper-awareness of people and their aspects, the things they embodied, and Oikawa shifted in his sight like mercury. But he’d never said anything. He’d never really figured out what he could say, _hey, captain, we’re both witches now, let’s find a third and make a coven?_ No thanks. His magic was a solitary thing, for him to explore and perfect on his own. In volleyball the team was everything, the individual just a piece of a living, breathing machine, interlocking and moving in perfect symmetry, a gun firing the ball at the enemy. Yahaba had no problem being a piece of that gun, but sometimes he preferred to be a sword, and magic was a whetstone. 

Maybe Oikawa noticed him staring, or maybe he just didn’t want to risk breaking his thread bracelet, because he took it off and tucked it into his shoe. “Sometimes people needle you because it’s the only way they see to getting closer to you,” he said, closing the locker with a snap.

Yahaba blinked, having completely lost track of the conversation. He shook his head, not even dignifying that with a proper answer. “We’re not talking about you and Iwaizumi,” he said drily, and moved past an Oikawa gasping with fake indignation and out onto the court.

Kyoutani was running laps around the gym. When Yahaba first emerged Kyoutani’s head snapped around to stare at him, and then he shifted his gaze stubbornly forward again. Yahaba sighed, waiting until his lap passed the door, and then fell into step beside him. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I didn’t mean the shit I said in there.”

Kyoutani didn’t look at him, his face stony.

“If it helps,” Yahaba said, trying to lighten the mood, “I’m all bark and no bite.”

Kyoutani stopped dead, grabbing his shoulder, and Yahaba spun, surprised, almost tripping over his own feet. “Are you making this worse on purpose?” Kyoutani growled.

Yahaba stared at him. “Um,” he said, “not really—”

Kyoutani’s fists were clenched at his sides. “I’m not a werewolf,” he said tightly. “I wasn’t a wolf when you found me, I was a dog. I was a dog and I was freaked out and you startled me and I—” he scrubbed an angry hand across his eyes, and Yahaba realized with a start he was trying not to cry. “I could have seriously hurt you and now you’re taking every chance to throw it in my fucking face, talk about this like it’s some kind of _joke_.”

Yahaba took a breath at the look in his eyes, the guilt and the self-hate. “Kyoutani.”

Kyoutani broke his gaze, working his lips with his teeth. “I wish it had been anyone but you,” he muttered, his voice bitter.

Yahaba flashed angry all over again. “You _what?_ ” he hissed. That stung. He knew they fought, he knew he had a tendency to go too far, but there was a part of him that had thought they were actually becoming friends. “You should be fucking ecstatic it was me, I’m the only one who might have a clue what’s happening! I’m sorry it means you have to actually spend some time with me—”

Kyoutani turned back to him, familiar scowl back in place. “That’s not why, stupid.”

Yahaba looked at him, hard. “Then why?”

He should have known Kyoutani wasn’t a wolf. Predator, sure, but there was an odd strain of steadiness even in Kyoutani’s wild eyes, and something else that showed itself now, as Kyoutani sighed. A deep and fierce loyalty, an honesty that knocked the breath out of Yahaba’s lungs. “Because the idea of ever hurting you makes me want to gnaw off my own arm,” he said quietly, his face softening out of its scowl into something else, something open and defeated. “And now I have, and you keep fucking.” He clenched his jaw. “Laughing.”

Yahaba took a breath, met honesty with honesty. “I’m laughing because I’m scared.”

Kyoutani drew in on himself, his shoulders hunching forward, and Yahaba stepped up into his space. “Not of you,” he said. “Of what’s happening to you.”

Kyoutani stared at the floor. “Yeah,” he said. “Me too.”

Without letting himself think too hard, Yahaba stepped forward and pulled him into a hug. Kyoutani stiffened in his arms, but didn’t pull away. “We’re gonna figure this out,” Yahaba said against Kyoutani’s ear. “You’re going to be okay.”

Kyoutani’s hands came up to rest at the small of his back, pulling him minutely closer. He shoved his face hard against Yahaba’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he said, voice muffled and choked. “I’m sorry.”

Yahaba closed his eyes, running one hand up into the short strands of Kyoutani’s hair. “I know,” he said. “It’s okay. I forgive you.”

Kyoutani took a shaking breath. His hair was soft against Yahaba’s palm. “I forgive you,” Yahaba said again, and hung on.

**Author's Note:**

> I love these two tbh. More Kyouhaba in everything please
> 
> (i wonder what's up with oikawa huh)


End file.
